ISLAMABAD: *Pakistan may face worst ever revenue shortfall of over Rs 900billion due coronavirus pandemic outbreak, *Industries and ProductionMinister Hammad Azhar on Friday informed the Senate.
He said that the Federal Board of Revenue’s tax collection for this fiscalyear may drop to around Rs3,905 billion, as against the pre-corona targetof Rs4,800 billion.
Responding to various supplementary questions during question hour, he saiddue to the pandemic, a loss of Rs700-Rs900 billion was expected in the lastquarter.
“With a shortfall in revenues and an increase in public spending due tostimulus package, the fiscal deficit is expected to exceed the target of7.5pc of GDP and might go up to 9.4pc of GDP.
On a query, he said the incumbent government has successfully brought downcurrent account deficit from $20 billion to $3-6 billion.
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He said since 2018, Pakistan has received $1.44 billion under the ExtendedFund Facility (EFF 2019-2023) and $1.38 billion under the Rapid FinanceInstrument (RFI) from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Similarly, anamount of $1.27 billion has been returned to IMF since March 2018.
To another question, Azhar said the government had announced a stimuluspackage of Rs1.24 trillion to support different segments of the society,including businesses, during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Before the outbreak of Covid-19, gross domestic product growth (GDP) wasprojected at 3.24pc for FY20, with growth in agriculture projected at2.85pc, industry 1.95pc and services 4.04pc,” he recalled. “However, due tothe pandemic, FY20 posted a negative growth of -0.4pc (provisional), withagriculture at 2.67pc, industry -2.64pc and services -0.59pc.”
